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St John’s, Bridgnorth launch Live Simply

Paul and Clare Cooper from St John’s Church in Bridgnorth record the minutes from their first meeting to launch the Live Simply award in the parish

The morning began with Meet and Greet and coffee. A total of 20 people attended.

Fr Iain began the meeting with the Live Simply Prayer.

Mary Gilbert presented a short video about how the Live Simply Campaign has been taken up in other parishes around the country, which included examples of specific projects that groups were working on and the benefits that had been brought, not only to others, but to those involved.

Mary explained the principles of the Campaign which covered three areas titled ‘living simply’, ‘living sustainably’ and ‘living in solidarity’. We were shown resources such as ‘100 Ideas’ and the Live Simply Hymn from the CAFOD web site:

Discussion followed about what we were already doing as a parish, such as supporting the Bridgnorth food bank, Mary’s meals, SVP sick visiting and lifts to Mass, among other activities. Post-it notes were provided for people to discuss with others in the meeting what they did at home as individuals or families to contribute towards living simply, sustainably and in solidarity with others. Further ideas were encouraged to create momentum for possible projects.

John Gilbert collated all the ideas and presented a summary of the different categories

It was proposed to sign up as a parish to Live Simply and work towards the award. The vote was unanimous and Fr. Iain backed the proposal.

Fr. Iain also commented on some of the attractive ideas suggested in the ‘100 Ideas’ list including:-

CAFOD World Gifts / Christmas cards for sale in Church

Feast of St Francis Liturgy

Create a quiet contemplation space at the side of the Church and include bird feeders, bird/ bat boxes etc

Mary went on to show an example of an action plan for the award and discussed the time span and eventual assessment in order to achieve the award. She suggested that we would need to set up a Steering Group to take the ideas forward. Most thought they would like more time to consider and it was agreed that we would have another meeting specifically to create a Steering Group and to develop our ideas.